This informative piece explains a well-known method that venture capitalists use to determine "post-money valuation," which is a company's valuation at the time of investment. Perhaps more important, it provides valuable insights into why the returns expected by investors are often perceived as "too high" by entrepreneurs.

A highly successful angel investor and entrepreneur identifies and puts to the test a valuation calculator tool. He finds that it works very well, thank you. By answering twenty-five questions, entrepreneurs and investors arrive at valuations that can reasonably be used as a practical guide to investing.

An important voice in the angel investing world, Luis Villalobos has contributed a practical new term--"valuation divergence"--that focuses on a little understood fact of angel investing: Returns on investments in a company do not increase in direct proportion to the company's market valuation. Entrepreneurs and investors alike will benefit from a better understanding of this concept.

Numerous factors affect how angels value a company. Primary are the strength of the management team and the size of the opportunity, or a company's potential to scale. Accompanying this article is a valuation worksheet that entrepreneurs can use to better understand what investors look for and to identify factors that can justify higher pre-money valuations. Investors will find it useful to compare companies and determine whether valuation should be higher or lower.

When he moved his business online, Jerry Kenefake needed a new way to market his promotions products. Pay-per-click advertising turned out to be that new way. Its power to measure results, track buying habits, and, oh yes, sell his products propelled his company forward, and he never looked back.

When developing a budget, it is important to estimate profits annually for the next three years as well as to develop a detailed month-by-month budget of sales, expenses, and cash flow amounts for the same three years.

Self-healing metal that pops back into shape after it's damaged. Machines that give surgeons full-color, 3D images of a patient's insides. Sensors that warn police or soldiers of explosives miles away. This is the promise of a proposed $700 million statewide investment program that aims to turn sci-fi dreams into Ohio's business future. But does the promise hold up?

Question: I’ve read a few articles and blog posts over the past couple of days regarding Senator Dodd’s financial reform bill, and some of them suggest that it’s going to be more difficult for startups to raise money if the bill is signed into law. Why is that? I thought the bill was supposed to address the problems on Wall Street that led to our financial crisis.

It sounds like a privacy breach waiting to happen: Take some of your company's most classified information — employee records containing Social Security numbers, salaries — and put it on a bunch of remote servers that let you access the data via the public Internet.

A network of U.S. cities facilitating a weekly entrepreneur education program. Go to 1 Million Cups >

Whether you are starting or growing a company, FastTrac will help you live your dream at each stage.Go to FastTrac >

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